Mondoweiss, Speech Police, and the Smugness of the Anti-Zionist Left

I wanted to come back to a subject of my last post on Valdary, which discussed the political rhetoric I’d used to criticize her. I called her a “Negro Zionist” and Uncle Tom. I wasn’t surprised at the showering of lies and invective from the uber-Israelites. But I wasn’t prepared to have Phil Weiss, Scott Roth and Alex Kane of Mondoweiss chime in.

Most of the critics have little familiarity with the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s, the history of the era, or even basic racial terminology extant much more than a decade ago. To review, the word “Negro” was first championed by W.E.B. DuBois in the 1920s. Slate characterized his views thus:

W.E.B. Du Bois, following the lead of Booker T. Washington, advocated for a switch to Negro in the 1920s…Du Bois argued that the term was “etymologically and phonetically” preferable to colored or “various hyphenated circumlocutions.” Most importantly, the new terminology—chosen by black leaders themselves—symbolized a rising tide of black intellectual, artistic, and political assertiveness.

By the 1950s and 60s, it had become a mainstream, respectful reference to people of Color. It replaced “Colored” (eg., National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), which was deemed too patronizing a term and one that harkened back to an era of racial segregation and Jim Crow. Contrary to what some ignorant pro-Israel bloggers wrote, “Negro” is not “the N-word.” That is simply either lazy sloganeering or willful ignorance. The only connection between these two terms is that they each begin with “N.” One is a racial insult, the other is an archaism (since it is in limited use today), but not an insult.

“Negro” was embraced by Martin Luther King who used it a score of times in his momentous “I Have a Dream Speech” as term of respect. It also graces the United Negro College Fund. The Negro Leagues were where some of America’s great baseball players got their start. There are many older African-Americans who object to the latter term and prefer to refer to themselves as “Negro.” In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau retains a category, “Negro” out of respect for such feelings. A Northwestern University professor will deliver a talk next week, In the Arms of the Negress, which is described thus:

Prof. Copeland examines the negress, a key figure in western art from the nineteenth century to the present.

So either we should call these individuals racists in using such a term to describe themselves; or decry as racist non-minorities who use it, even though the term is used by minorities themselves. Either choice is patently absurd. Further, does this mean that a non-Jew employing sarcasm to make a political point can’t use the term ‘Heeb’ or ‘Jew boy,’ terms that are often used ironically and even positively by American Jews? My friend Jonathan Edelstein’s sorely missed blog, The Head Heeb and Heeb Magazine, are perfect examples. Of course, it depends on context. If the intent is anti-Semitic then the answer would be no. But if not, the answer must clearly be Yes. Except to the speech police at Mondoweiss.

“Negro” is a term that denotes a period of racial identity that has passed or is passing. Used today, the word conjures the sense of being separate or divorced from contemporary reality. It was in just such a sense that I associated Valdary with the word. She attempts to locate her pro-Israelism in a racial context, when it has everything to do with her evangelical Zionism, and nothing to do with race. Her Israel Lobby sponsors seek to tamp down the religious aspect of her “brand” and offer her as what I called a “Zionist of Color.”

I will not give the Lobby or Valdary a free pass in their exploitation of race (in her case), gender or sexual preference on Israel’s behalf. These are issues of personal identity and have nothing to do with Israel. My commitment to Israel has nothing to do with my skin color, my gender or my heterosexuality. Yet the Lobby chooses to exploit and highlight precisely those elements of Valdary’s identity and those of others like Hen Mazzig. It’s cynical.

Nor will I allow the Lobby or even the anti-Zionist left to foreclose my right to use the sharpest language possible to portray the hypocrisy of the pro-Israel community. This is no different than the Israel Lobby’s effort to foreclose opportunities to speak in the Jewish community as we’ve seen in the recent cases of Judith Butler and John Judis. I don’t care if terms like “Negro” rankle the far-right or far-left. They are my terms and I use them with pride as part of the rhetorical struggle for my values and ideas.

For Alex Kane to call the tweet “racist” and Mondoweis to favorite it on its popular Twitter account is dunderheaded and ignorant. It plays into the strategy of the far-right (where Alex Kane’s tweet has been widely quoted). It allows it to point fingers and drive a wedge between those on the left. Not to mention, Weiss and Kane are acting as left thought-police arbitrating what is acceptable and unacceptable rhetoric in political debate. The irony of this is, of course, that a bunch of white Jewish leftists are telling another less Jewish leftist (in their view) that he can’t use a term to describe members of another race, which members of that race themselves still use to describe themselves. It’s unseemly and just plain dumb. The Mondoweiss crowd have made clear their disdain for my views and I can now say it’s returned.

I’ve had my differences with Mondoweiss over the years, but I’ve never said so. While some of its reporting is useful, its analysis is generally shallow and artificial. It often has a cut and paste pastiche effect. But most importantly for me, I find the attitude toward Judaism and Jewish identity to be precious, alienated and artificial. As a result, whenever MW writes about any of these subjects it comes across as strangely deracinated. Phil himself has referred to this approach (though not to himself) as “tourism.” I sometimes feel like he’s slumming because he knows so little about Judaism and Jewish values. What he’s seeing he appears to either dislike or not understand.

But I’ve not expressed any of these feelings till now, because I believed it was more important to focus on what should be more important: fighting on behalf of a just solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict. But now that Alex Kane and company have thrown down the gauntlet with a tweet they favorited deriding my views and language, I no longer feel any such sense of solidarity.

I made several attempts to express my views to Weiss and Roth before writing this. Their responses were underwhelming, to say the least.

I submitted one piece to Alex Kane, who is an editor at Alternet. He rejected it. Now we have an idea why. I’m not a member of the super-left club. As Groucho Marx once famously said: “I wouldn’t join any club that would’ve have me for a member!”

Strangely it gets even more apt when you include the full Groucho quote of “I’ve every mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it…” which often neatly describes the fractured way a lot of us lefties seem to form off into tribes and forget the bigger picture.

Richard. You obviously do not have any African-American friends. If you had any, you’d be more aware of African-American sensitivities to the term, ‘negro’. Why do you suppose it is that you haven’t made any friends of African-Americans?

@ Shoshana: A pro-settler Israeli Jew is trying to school me on racial terms. Fancy that. You come by this wisdom precisely how? I know the term “Negro” is a sensitive term. That is why I used it. But it is not a racist term no matter how many times you try to claim otherwise.

Good piece.
The Mondoweiss crowd is the mirror image of rightwing Zionists.
It is now simply Judeophobic. If anyone is for the Jews, MW is against them.
But give it credit, if it wasn’t for MW, I might not understand how much anti-semitism is out there parading as anti-Zionism. The good news is that I don’t see it emanating from Palestinians or Muslims over at MW (which would be awful news) but from Christians who probably never could stand Jews and Jews who understand nothing about Jewish history and couldn’t care less. I am not talking about Phil except to say that he allows this hateful crap on his site.

To be honest, I never could stand the crazy left. I forgot why for awhile but MW has helped me remember.

That’s odd. I would assume that you would also find the term “Negro Zionist” to be offensive, since in your writings you take the view that Ali Abunimah is racist because of using the term Zionist in negative ways.

Personally, I don’t see why someone who opposes nationalism must be considered to be against the ethnicity itself.

I’m sorry to hear of the rift between the Mondoweiss crew and Richard here. But I’m also surprised that you didn’t realize that a white person calling a black person an “Uncle Tom” and a “Negro Zionist” (that’s just weird) would be criticized. I’ve seen people on the far left use the term “Uncle Tom” about Obama and even though I often agree with the substance of the critique, which is that he is too centrist and too much the corporate Democrat and too much of a militarist, I wince when they use that term. There are some terms that people outside a given group shouldn’t be using.
It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person–it’s just a matter of common sense, in my opinion. Why use a term that you know will upset some, when you can make all the substantive points without doing so?

But as long as we’re on the subject of mudslinging, let’s start with MJ when he started flinging the antisemitism charge at Ali Abunimah. If MJ thinks the Palestinians and Muslims at MW are lovely people (I’m sure they’re honored), perhaps he should tell them that he despises Ali Abunimah and his alleged Jew hatred, which seems to manifest itself exclusively in harsh criticism of Israel. Abunimah, after all, is the person who wishes to distance the pro-Palestinian movement from people like Atzmon, and who was very critical of that Western activist who emailed the idiotic speculations about Zionists helping Nazis in the Holocaust. Yeah, an obvious anti-semite there, MJ. You’ve got such a good nose for sniffing out such things. I think MJ can’t tell the difference between real antisemitism and criticism of Israel that he doesn’t like. He’s hardly the first person to draw a line and say that if you go further than this in your criticism of Israel then you’re an antisemite. I’d like MJ to name the people in the comments section who are Jews and understand nothing about Jewish history. I could name at least two regulars there who are Jewish, (one is Israeli), and know a hell of a lot about Jewish history and history in general. Perhaps MJ would like to challenge them on their relative levels of knowledge. There are some problems in the Mondoweiss comment community and I’ve ranted about them there sometimes, once even on the front page. More recently some have sided with Assad, even though his tactics (including bombing civilians) are like Operation Cast Lead on a much larger scale. That’s the left I don’t like. But one thing I totally reject and that’s the idea that MW is somehow uniquely “bad” in a way that other places aren’t. Sorry, but go to any mainstream site and look at the discussions of the I/P conflict and the pro-Israel side will be found making repulsive comments with virtually every sentence they type. That includes the comment section at the NYT and at any mainstream liberal blog where this subject comes up. And yes, that includes many people who identify themselves as “liberal” and who say they support a 2SS.

I googled for Valdary’s blog. It’s the usual rightwing hasbara. I read three of her latest posts, including the one where she responds to you.

But Richard, your wounds are self-inflicted here. You walked right into it with that “Uncle Tom” nonsense. I have a white friend who believes exactly the same things as Valdary. He supports Israel because he thinks God wants us to and he reads rightwingers like David Horowitz and buys into every rightwing cliche you’ve ever heard on this and other subjects, but he doesn’t believe these things or read Horowitz because he wants to pander to the white man or to Jews. He wouldn’t give a damn what Jews think, unless they are rightwing Jews whose views on Israel and Arabs and Muslims line up with his. Valdary seems to have the same set of beliefs and there’s no reason to think she didn’t come by them honestly, however that is possible. But by dragging her skin color into it and calling her an “Uncle Tom”, you gave her an opening to tell you that no, as a white man you don’t get to tell black people they must think a certain way. And she’s right. She’s wrong about everything else, but by linking her stupid beliefs with that phrase “Uncle Tom”, you gave her an excuse to mount her soapbox.

I really like you and your blog, but I think you made a mistake.

This is all separate, I think, from whatever other issues you might have with Mondoweiss.

@ Donald: My post lays out my argument very clearly and if you read or understood you would understand that it is SHE & the Lobby that “dragged” race into the mix. I merely pointed that out. So instead of targeting them for what they’ve done you say I “walked into” something or that my wounds are “self-inflicted.” There are no wounds here except those created out of whole cloth by the far right.

This is your 3rd comment in which you’ve essentially said the same thing. Say what you have to say in a single comment & don’t repeat yourself.

In my view you have been stuck in the 2SS position for far too long, perhaps like Uri Averny

American Zionism, like Hillary Clinton, just had the floodlights shown on them IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO support of the Ethnic Cleansing Apartheid State of Israel…

There is NOTHING lovable about a Zionist, MJ

MJ – American Zionism HAS BEEN FULLY WIDE-EYED COMPLICIT in the war-crimes of the Israeli State, from Birthright all the Brooklyn Settlers, co-opting our Congress and destroying any checks and balances that might have stopped it, destroying (the Well Known Dershowitz/ADL ‘Anti-Semite Smear Treatment).

American Zionism HIDING Jewish/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, and FORCING the US to bankroll it, arm it to the teeth, and sluice it hot cash. American Zionism FULLY COMPLICIT in the Crime of the Century and pushing/lying/false flagging the US into Iraq, then just barely missing after multiple shots at Iran/Syria

POT MEET KETTLE – the Holocaust Museum on the Mall will need a new wing to describe American Zionism’s bells on toes support,

As far as I can see this is going to be a religion- or tradition-changing experience

MJ said:
‘It is now simply Judeophobic. If anyone is for the Jews, MW is against them.’

”The good news is that I don’t see it emanating from Palestinians or Muslims over at MW (which would be awful news) but from Christians who probably never could stand Jews and Jews who understand nothing about Jewish history and couldn’t care less”

LOL…and we gentiles and christian are suppose to love you for this attitude? How dumb can you get.
I memory serves and I am sure it does you are the *gentilephobic* who tells us non jewish americans dont have a right to a opinion on Israel or our country’s policy toward it cause we are all responsible just like the christians, europeans and the catholics for deliberately letting Hitler kill Jews.
This is hysterical, I dont know who are the bigger flaming hypocrites and bigots– the zionist, the liberal zionist like you, or mincing the anti zionst.
I’d say it a tie.

Richard, you are entirely right here. I’ve seen people (sometimes dishonestly) castigated for correctly referring – as did Malcolm X – to ‘house Negroes’. Need a person have some African ancestry to use this term? I don’t think so. Such a pity when clever people with wide followings are so ignorant of history.

I am married to a black man (who, by the way, dislikes the expression African-American). And the word ‘negro’ is nothing more than another word for black. If someone believes ‘negro’ is pejorative, than so is black, or white, for that matter.

Richard, sorry to see this eruption. I rather like both your blog and, of course, Mondoweiss. Both are doing great service to a cause that’s really much larger than any individual disagreements or ideological separations. I think you have found your own voice in the past few years and your writing has become really impressive and deep. MW is of course, a different kind of a blog, doing more aggregation and multi-voice commenting, but has many accomplishments and great writing on its end over the past years.

You and I for example (not to attribute too much importance to my own self) had our disagreements too, say about Syria. But I would never allow a disagreement in viewpoints in one area to cloud my jsdgement and appreciations of the body of your work across the board. You bring us news and comments from censorship land of israel that one cannot find elsewhere, delivered with passion and clarity. Mondoweiss too brought out many great writers on many a subject, doing an especially good job on giving voice to palestinians and a myriad of young jewish writers and people outside Israel Too bad that when it comes to israel, MW is a bit of an outsider, not having anyone on their board who actually spent some years or more in that land as you had. But no one blog can be everything to everyone, can they? IMO, MW has been trying hard to remedy the absence of religious/spiritual jewish thought in its pages by giving lots of space to eg, Marc Ellis and rabbi brian walt – just to name a couple. May be more could be done, but one has to start somewhere – Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will the real jerusalem of the spirit.

My own feelings are that the religious/Spiritual divide from the secular among jewish people outside israel is something that is not easy to bridge and frankly, we all owe thanks to the Palestinians and their cause, for making us aware that there is another side, and a valid one, to the discourse (will elabortate on this point some day). For myself, I had to go through a process to accept that the fact that some of us are neither believers not all that spiritual, in no way invalidates the views/feelings/ thoughts of those who are. But I have an excuse – In Israel the walls between the secular and the religious were really sky-high – not so easy to scale.

I would like to posit the possibility that the gap you are seeing between your take on issues and MW-land is partially a gap between east coast intelligensia and the west coast laissez-faire flow of ideas. Unfortunately sometimes west coasters are viewed (among the Jewish “smart set” as well as “old-world ‘wasps”) as [intellectually] “nouveaux-riche”. Hence that smidgen of condescension you perceive that you take an understandable exception to. But here’s what I’d say – given the huge efforts underway to split and suppress the community of free thinkers on I/P (jewish and not), efforts that are gathering steam as we speak, the last thing we may want is to give in to hurt feelings or occasional tiff (justified or not). As hard as it may be and as unfair the slights, please rise above it. Whether those who offend you do or not, no reason you can’t be the bigger mensch, right?

I don’t disagree with anything you say about MW. But ponder this question: why in the 11 yrs I’ve been writing this blog have I read MW regularly, linked to it regularly & acknowledged it’s role, all the while never expressing my reservations about it; while I get called a racist by both Alex Kane AND Phil Weiss. What sort of solidarity is that?

I didn’t pick this fight & gave them every opportunity to mend the damage. When they favorited Kane ‘ s tweet, that was the last straw. I’d feel better about your effort here if you wrote Phil as well. But he’ll ignore you or defend himself. Which is precisely the problem.

there is politically correct and if I might coin a term, there is “hyper-politically correct.”
attacking another over the use of “negro zionist” qualifies as the latter.
this is apart from the other causative issues for the attack.

I am surprised that anyone should consider “Negro” to be a pejorative term.
After Justice Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement and Clarence Thomas was being forwarded by President Bush (Sr.), Justice Marshall made a comment that it is more important to have the right person in the Supreme Court than the right negro. He was voicing his own disaproval of Thomas.

Richard,
I think the biggest issue is not how you intended the term to come across, but the fact that others – especially allies on the issue of Israel and Palestine – feel uncomfortable by your words. The discomfort of historically oppressed people should be enough of a substantive concern for you to reconsider your language. This may seem like a small issue to you, but the fact that you dismiss aptly_engineered’s concerns so easily (as someone who stands the most to be harmed by the word), suggests you would dismiss other concerns of anti-black racism. I wouldn’t assume that all of the anti-Zionist left cares this much, which is why I think she is so insistent on asking you to change your language. We are united in our concern for justice for Israelis and Palestinians, but do not extend that same concern to other connected (and for those of us in the US, more local) forms of oppression (e.g. homophobia, sexism, racism, etc.) Those of us who believe in larger ideals of justice/democracy should seek to bring people together and uplift them, not to divide them or put them down. Given how easy it is to take a quote out of context and how many followers you have, the stakes are higher for you and this larger conversation.

You think the biggest issue is ‘not how I intended the point to come across.’ Nor do you think the actual history of the term has any relevance. Nor do you bring any evidence to bolster your contention that I am wrong in my use of it. Instead, like the person you allude to, you bring a series of emotional responses from people who purport to champion progressive anti-racism values. People who discount all the evidence I’ve offered, including frequent use of the term contemporaneously by African-Americans. So your claim is because I’ve hurt her feelings and she is a progressive African-American anti-racist activist, that this alone justifies abandoning my usage.

Not to mention that you ignore the entire context of the ideological battle with Chloe Valdary. You ignore her own smear of a progressive American Jewish activist for feminism and Palestinian rights, Judith Butler. You ignore her equally foul portrayal of Israeli peace activists as “psychopathic.” You would deny me a powerful rhetorical tool to comment on her and the Israel Lobby’s exploitation of race to benefit pro-Israel values you claim to deplore.

In fact, you dismiss the poison Valdary spews:

Those of us who believe in larger ideals of justice/democracy should seek to bring people together and uplift them, not to divide them or put them down.

Valdary is someone who is foul. I would describe her in the most strongly etched terms regardless of her race. If she or you feels that is divisive or a “put down” you should consider how this entire episode originated and who originated it. Who divided whom and who put whom down.

Sorry, but your argument isn’t persuasive.

And no, this clearly isn’t a small issue. Not for me. Nor did I dismiss her “easily.” In fact, I wrote scores of tweets to her explaining my views. She refused to acknowledge any validity to anything I said, despite the fact I continually offered evidence & she offered none.

I am a regular reader of your blog and an occasional commenter. Incidentally, I am also mixed race, meaning that my father is black and my mother is white.

The term “negro” that you are so vigorously defending is, in my mind, clearly pejorative and most commonly used by racists. You can defend it all you want, but there it is.

If you fail to understand why, then let me elucidate. Regardless of its very early use in history, the term “negro”, apart from its everyday use during the times of slavery, is nowadays firmly associated with the Jim Crow era and the strict distinction between between black and white people in the US. There was no equality and very little justice, the effects of which are lasting to this day.

The issue is that the feelings that are kindled by this term are neither gone nor will they be going in the near or not too distant future, as the impact of these times still has a very lasting and powerful legacy. Dismissing these emotions and the associated socioeconomic outcomes for black people in the US is, at the very very least, rude and suggests narrow mindedness.

Things may be different in Latin America, but used by a white US citizen, the term is an indictment to associate said person with the people who still use the term today.

The use of the term and the defense thereof marks you, badly. My suggestion would be that an apology for its use would be helpful, and it would give you the opportunity to realize that ignorance of others’ experiences can lead to rash and hurtful comments.

How you handle this issue is, of course, entirely up to you. I will check this site once more and draw my conclusions based on your reaction or its lack thereof.

@ Patrick: You haven’t understood the linguistic history of the term despite the fact that I’ve clearly outlined it here. “Negro” was not used during times of slavery nor associated with Jim Crow, as you claim. In fact, it was first used by WEB DuBois in 1920 (well after slavery) in contrast to the earlier term “colored,” which was the term associated with slavery and Jim Crow. “Negro” was, in its day, an englightened term. Which is to say there is no racist connotation to it. However, it is an out of date term, an archaism. Which is precisely why I used it. Only someone dealing in superficialities who didn’t bother to read either of the posts I wrote or understand my purpose in using the term, would jump to conclusions it was racist.

Dismissing these emotions and the associated socioeconomic outcomes for black people in the US

I’m certainly not doing that, and if you believe I am you are misreading my use of the term and my own views. I am not responsible for that misreading nor will you receive an apology for something that doesn’t deserve one.

I have to agree that Kane’s tweet was gratuitously unnecessary. Attacking Richard for, at the worst was insensitivity, made absolutely no sense. I was tempted to comment in Richard’s first post that a white person should not accuse a black of being an uncle tom. It is hard to say why, but that is an insult that should be reserved for blacks criticizing other blacks. I was active in the civil rights movement in the mid 60s and instinctively knew that it was not my place to use that term that many black radicals used to criticize the more conservative black civil rights groups, including the NAACP. My family had a number of respected friends that were active in the NAACP and even if the tactics of the civil rights movement had passed them by their contributions to integrating neighborhoods in my northern town deserved should not have been insulted. The use of the term Negro is also something that became dated at least by the 1970s. Not sure why but Patrick’s comment above makes sense. That is also a term I have avoided since the late 1960s. I have found the term ‘african american’ too cumbersome and too PC to feel comfortable using. Black seems a pretty good counterpoint to white which seems to be a reasonable way to avoid offending anyone. I notice that many young people 30 or more years my junior find that even a little archaic.

But in any case Richard, you walked into a mine field and set a few off.

Something magical just happened – AIPAC’s next president just made a disastrous mistake that cost her the presidency… like the rest of America’s Zionists and /Neocons, we just caught out her OUT in the OPEN running as AIPAC’s Girl when Apartheid-AIPAC went belly up. OMG

Whoops….. !!!!!!!!!!!!!

We just won the lottery folks!

‘I will not give the Lobby or Valdary a free pass in their exploitation of race (in her case), gender or sexual preference on Israel’s behalf’

God I love you…

You don’t play the ‘Bend over for your Zionist Master and Fellate the Donkey-Game’ – the only game Alan Dershowitz has given the world permission to play, conveniently enough, because that’s the only game Dershowitz can play where he doesn’t LOSE (and he LOSES everything else, and even loses his auto-gratifying Favorite Israeli Aparheid-Donkey Game, because of YOU) and the Permanent Apartheid that is Dershowitz’s life mission and legacy turns to ashes in his mouth.

Very interesting to see how Mondoweiss will react –

These are very interesting times – I just discovered yesterday that Hillary ‘I’ll Turn Iran to Glass’ Clinton is NOT going to be my president in 2016 because she made a DREADFUL MISTAKE…

Ms Clinton rode her Apartheid Israeli-AIPAC horse into her Presidential Coronation as the Israeli Apartheid Bene Gesserit-Witch, but it was the 21st Century, and the AIPAC-Apartheid horse died just at the critical moment, suffering from a bad case of BDS

And thus the AIPAC-Apartheid Candidate, ‘AIPAC’s Golden Girl’, with bells on her toes, DIDN”T BECOME US President #47

Please alert the world – Hillary Clinton rode in on a Pro-AIPAC Pro-Apartheid horse as ‘AIPAC’s Girl’, a brilliant move, until THAT ITSELF, SINGLE ISSUE, that she was AIPAC’s Girl’, as Apartheid went to the hell it deserves at the ICC

It’s the Perfect Storm to turn AiPAC’s Girl Orgasm into Ashes In Her Mouth – she came an uncontested winner BECAUSE she was AIPAC’s Girl – and she left in the fiasco of some cocky Republican who said, if I dump the moribund Apartheid-AIPAC, split America’s vote that hates Apartheid Israel, AIPAC, and Hillary, and BECOME US PRESIDENT

Hillary is ‘AIPAC’s Girl’, she was in 2008 (until overtaken by the dark horse Obama) and she is in 2016 – she revels in it – because up into EU Pres Schulz stuck a Fork in Apartheid

The Greatest Secret in the World is Hillary Clinton is riding the AIPAC horse, and the AIPAC horse is CHAINED to Apartheid Israel (Kristol and Lake are tearing it AIPAC apart right now because AIPAC is refusing to go down with the Aparthied Israeli ship BECAUSE it’s SAVIOR Hillary Clinton is riding like the dickens to the rescue of AIPAC as ‘AIPAC’s Girl’

Hilllary Clinton is riding an AIPAC-Apartheid horse and she DOESN”T REALIZE her GREATEST STRENGTH (Saban ForumI/Israel’s money, approval, and FULL BACKING) is NOW WHAT WILL TURN HER 2016 into something similar to 2008 – DISASTER FOR HILLARY

Israeli Apartheid is NO LONGER the FIGHT (Top Israeli Legal Teams agree with me – on Wikileaks they said it’s over when Palestine gets ICC access -wake up! It’s AIPAC, Hillary, and Apartheid – ALL TOGETHER because they are CHAINED together- PERFECT!) – we have just taken Hillary Clinton 2016 off the pages of history – because SINGLE ISSUE — Hillary is the FACE of the Israeli Lobby, Big Zion, and Apartheid Israel

Hillary goes down BECAUSE she is AIPAC’s Girl – rather than inevitably WINNING BECAUSE she is AIPAC’s Girl. It’s ju jitsu or marshal arts – Hillary is TOAST for precisely what she thought was her GREATEST STRENGTH

Hillary, like the other Dinosaurs, just got hit the biggest Yucatan Meteor of all time. I can BARELY still beiieve I KNOW HILLARY WILL NOT BE PRESIDENT IN 2016 because she’s tied to the biggest crime of the century – AIPAC-Apartheid and the Israeli Lobby’s control over the US political system, such that it sports candidates like HILLARY

Does some Republican or better yet Democrat/Indie want to be President INSTEAD OF HILLARY? YAHOOO!

I’m about ready to call Karl Rove and tell him Hillary is not president in 2016 – and you can make it happen .

All it takes is ‘NOTHING’ and Hillary disappears – how about this, Hill:

One question to Hillary or AIPAC’s spokesman such as – ‘I think you should tell the American people that you want to push the US into a 1000 yr war with Syria, Iran, and Islam in order to protect your Source of Campaign Contributions and Politcal Power, Hillary?’ – and it’s all over.

That’s it – the AIPAC Witch has been dissolved. Rand? ANYBODY WANT TO BE PRESIDENT? AIPAC wont’ be around to punish – or try to punish – the winner (think Bibi on Obama) because the Unholy Trinity of Hillary, AIPAC and Israeli Apartheid ARE ALL GOING DOWN TOGETHER

AIPAC is an American institution in direct critical support of Apartheid, in other words, a dead man walking. Hillary is riding this old sick Pro-Apartheid Israel man. DOES ANYONE SEE THAT OTHER THAN ME?! – OH YEAH THEY DO – and if they run on an Anti-AIPAC ticket – the OPPOSITE OF HILLARY – they – or someone OTHER THAN HILLARY – will be President

If the 2nd price Israel/the Israel Lobby pays for Apartheid, aside from the loss of the Zionist state, is that it is FORCED to operate as a foreign lobby, rather than it’s current Mafioso arrangement. And AIPAC’s Girl not only goes down in flames – she and AIPAC GO DOWN TOGETHER with Apartheid Israel

It is somewhat disheartening for me to witness like minded proponents of Palestinian freedom and self-determination, from whom I’ve learned so much over the years, engaged in this kind of verbal banter over how to use of racial terms as a means of criticism.

Here, I neither defend Richard but neither do I defend his left leaning critics.

First, I do not believe that Richard used the terms “Negro” or “Uncle Tom” as generalized racial pejoratives or in a racist manner, even though some have made this interpretation. When I read the substance here, it is hard for me to avoid the simple fact that Chloe Valdary is Black, and as a Black women, is out there supporting a political philosophy, (right wing or Likud) Zionism, which, as far as the Palestinian people are concerned, has taken on the charactistics of life under Jim Crow segregation (in degree that legalized separation of Jews and Arabs within Israel mimics the past segregation of Black people in the southern United States) and Apartheid (in degree that Palestinians residing in the territories today live in the manner of segregated Blacks during the Apartheid era in South Africa). Second, as this cannot be a matter of ignorance of Black history or Palestinian history on the part of Valdary, the racial associations that surface here are stark, because they are incongruous. How could any Black person, presumably knowledgeable of recent Black history in the US go on to laud a similar history by the perpetrator, Israel. Given its own derivation, does Valdary deserve to be called “Black”? Black is the identity which propelled civil rights beginning in the 1960s, and no one then or today would use the term “Negro” except in condescension. Along with the term “colored,” “Black” is an outmoded term; both white derived and derogatory.

So, IMO, I think I know what Richard was trying to say. We all do. As Valdary supports a state that practices Jim Crow and Apartheid, she is undeserving of her “Black” identity. Should he have expressed it differently? Apparently so, given the uproar it has caused.

Richard, for all of the good work you have done over the years to help the Palestinian people, you didn’t deserve this treatment. Next time, spell it out.

What luck I would happen upon this from friendfeed!
Richard is right you other idiots are wrong.
As a OLD Southerner who observed all the changes regarding black americans I can tell you that the word ‘Negro’ was, back in the day, considered the ‘proper and respectful” way to refer to black americans. I myself always preferred to use simply black american if I had to refer to someone’s race.
So ‘Negro’ was proper and correct until the advent of the ethnocentric trend and ‘hyphenated’- americans became all the PC and political rage..that is when African- American replaced the term Negro.
Also imo it is exceedingly insulting to call blacks ‘African’ as if they are attached to a foreign country—-when black americans have been here for 392 years—as long as the Founders of this country— a hell of a lot longer, with more contributions to this country than the nattering fools I frequently see misrepesenting history that came thru Ellis island only a generation or two ago.

I know blacks intimately, have for 60 years had social,political,business relationships with blacks and I can tell most blacks would be the first ones to call Valdary a ‘Auntie Tommy’— an ‘opportunist’ using blacknes to build her self a ‘niche and career with the only people low enough to have her.
What?, you think blacks arent smart enough to see thru this woman and how she’s using her color as some kind of ‘novelty’ to sell herself—Hah!—they arent as stupid as some of you pompus white fools are.